


The Witcher Wolf and the Witcher Bard

by sageclover61



Series: Bard Assassin [7]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin Jaskier | Dandelion, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, M/M, Multi, Musician Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22778152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageclover61/pseuds/sageclover61
Summary: Ciri was the girl in the wood who haunted Geralt for 30 years, and she is his destiny. But she's not the only one whose fate is tied with his.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Bard Assassin [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623745
Comments: 27
Kudos: 623





	The Witcher Wolf and the Witcher Bard

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that this serves to explain why Jaskier is immortal, and why everyone (including Yen) knew while Geralt just.... didn't notice. Thank you all for leaving such thoughtful comments for this series! Come find me on tumblr, @sageclover61, I'd love to chat!

“Geralt,” Vesemir said, pointing at Jaskier. He was frowning and did not look at all pleased. “Witchers trained in the school of vipers are not welcome here in Kaer Morhen.”   
  
Geralt’s smile fell. “Vesemir-”

“I’m not one of those viper monsters!” Jaskier shouted. “Spies, assassin’s, rapists, they’d rather burn humanity to the ground than hunt their monsters for them!”

He would have said more, but everything was suddenly far darker than it should have been, and he found himself falling to the side.

“Jaskier!”

Geralt watched helplessly as Yennefer kept Jaskier from falling out of the saddle by grabbing his leg.

Why would Vesemir think that Jaskier was a witcher? Sure, it turned out that he was definitely sturdier than regular humans, but Jaskier was far too small and lacking in the muscular definition that would have been attributed to the mutagen from the trial of grasses.

So why didn’t he have the words to explain to Vesemir that he was wrong and that Jaskier  _ had  _ to stay?

“Vesemir, are you senses growing dull in your old age? Such a dose of Fisstech would have only slowed a Witcher down a little, and a Viper? Not even that.”

Geralt turned to where the new voice had come from. Coen, a Witcher from the school of the Griffin, who spent every winter in Kaer Morhen, was leaning against a tree. Lambert and Eskel, two who had been trained at the same time as he, were right behind Coen, hauling a very large dead elk between them.

He sighed. “Vesemir, can we come inside? My friends are Cirilla, Heir of Cintra and my child of surprise  _ twice  _ over, Yennefer, Mage of Aretzua, and Jaskier, bard of Oxenfurt, whose help without which we would not have survived to return here.” Which was probably an exaggeration, but they couldn’t exactly stand here  _ all day  _ discussing this.

“Alright,” Vesemir relented. “Come on in, then. This is a story I want to hear all of.”

Vesemir opened the gate and they headed to the stable first.

Jaskier hadn’t awoken by the time they made it to the stable, so after Yennefer helped Ciri down from Roach, Geralt gently pulled Jaskier into his arms. He had one arm around his shoulders and one under his knees.

* * *

They sat in the main living area on the ground floor of the keep. The fire was lit, and Geralt had laid Jaskier across one of the larger sofas, so that he and Yennefer could sit on either side of him, and Ciri on the armrest.

“Start at the beginning,” Vesemir said.

What even was the beginning? When he’d claimed the law of surprise at Pavetta’s betrothal banquet? Maybe the beginning was when he’d first met Jaskier.  _ Or,  _ was the beginning Renfi’s prophecy outside Blaviken? Calanthe of Cintra had been a young princess, fighting her first battle that year, and Renfri had been older than her, forced to hide and steal because Stregobor had been hunting for her blood.

Jaskier stirred slightly, and Geralt petted the head in his lap to drive his thoughts away from Blaviken. He’d found the girl in the woods, he didn’t  _ need  _ to continue allowing Renfri to haunt him decades upon decades later.

“Where are we?” Jaskier mumbled. His body tensed, but he didn’t open his eyes.

“Welcome to Kaer Morhen, Jaskier of Oxenfurt,” Vesemir said.

Jaskier flinched so hard, that Geralt’s grip on his shoulder was the only thing preventing him from toppling onto the floor. “Not of Oxenfurt,” he whined. “Never of Oxenfurt.”

“It’s alright, Jaskier,” Geralt soothed. “You’re safe here.”

“The story, Geralt,” Vesemir pressed.

He sighed. “You’ve always wanted to hear the truth about Blaviken, haven’t you, Jaskier? What  _ really  _ happened?”

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s voice was laced with so much confusion that it almost masked the weariness in his tone. “You’ve never-”

“There was a mage, Stregobor, and a young woman, Princess Renfri of Creyden, who had been born under the Curse of the Black Sun. There was no lesser evil, and her last words to me before she made  _ her  _ choice will haunt me forever. ‘ _ You say you can’t choose, but you had to _ ,’ she said. ‘ _ And you’ll never know if you were right. Your reward will be a stoning, and you will run. You will try to outrun the girl in the woods, but you cannot. For she is your destiny. _ ’”

“That’s why you found me in the woods, right?” Ciri asked. “She was talking about me?”

“She was,” Geralt agreed. “And she was right. Destiny brought me to you twice.”

From Geralt’s lap, Jaskier hummed softly.

“Your future lies unspoke

In timeless emerald eyes.

A world may burn as pages turn

Or a savior may arise!”

He had not heard that ballad from the bard before, and it did not seem that he was going to hear the whole thing now, as Jaskier yawned loudly. 

“Another prophecy?” he asked quietly, petting at Jaskier’s head again.

“Prophecies don’t  _ have  _ to rhyme,” Jaskier stated, “but some of them do.”

“I’ve learned that the hard way, I believe,” Geralt decided. “How are you feeling?”

Jaskier yawned again, leaning further into Geralt as he shrugged softly. “‘m alright, tired mostly. I’ll survive though.”

Geralt nodded, satisfied for the moment with Jaskier’s assessment of the situation.

Coen poured some of the soup from the kettle over the fire into a bowl. "Jaskier, do you think you can eat some of this? Eating should help your body burn through the Fisstech faster."

"I'm not very hungry." At Geralt's pinching of his side, he added, "But I'll try."

* * *

After eating very little, Geralt got an exhausted Jaskier settled into one of the more reclusive bedrooms on the main floor in the castle. Ciri had yawned her way through the morning meal as well, so it was easy to choose settling down over exploring every inch of the castle.

The handful of Witchers who had returned for the winter did so every year, but it had been some number of years since Geralt had. He'd found other things to do and see instead.

Jaskier's songs  _ had  _ affected public opinion of him and Witchers greatly. No longer did he have to fear that he would spend the entire winter without being welcome in a single inn, the main reason that returning to Kaer Morhen had always been a welcome choice.

The cold couldn't kill him, but he didn't favor sleeping in the snow for 3 months. And it wasn't good for his traveling companions, either.

Yennefer had magicked the bed in the room a little bigger, so it could comfortably sleep three adults and a child with room to spare. Ciri had instantly curled up in the corner at the foot of the bed, which was in the middle of the rood with only the headboard against the wall.

Geralt had originally wanted the bed to be in the corner with Jaskier against the wall, where he and Yennefer could both protect him, but Yennefer convinced him to put Jaskier in the middle so they could both react if anything went wrong with their bard.

Ciri was asleep as soon as she had curled up, and Jaskier was asleep before he was horizontal. Yennefer was asleep a few minutes later, and Geralt wondered if there might have been a lot left out of how she'd ended up accompanying Jaskier.

He didn't need sleep. He hadn't slept in days, and normally would have gone straight to sleep in his room at the top of one of the towers. But while Geralt trusted the rest of the Witchers with his life, he wasn't ready to trust them with the safety of his...  _ family _ .

So instead of sleeping, he meditated about as close to the surface as was possible so that he would still be aware of  _ any  _ changes around him, either from any of them shifting in their sleep, or any movements in the hall outside the room. But all was calm.

There was only one disturbance that morning, when someone had walked past, but nothing else. There had been some voices from down the hall about that same time, but he had been unable to hear what was said.

So long as they weren’t bothering his family, it was alright.

* * *

Someone left a platter of food outside the door a little while before Ciri woke up. Whoever it was, they were quiet about it, but Geralt could smell the food even though it was behind the door.

“Geralt, I’m hungry,” Ciri mumbled as she sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

Yennefer had determined that there were no poisons or combinations of poisons in the food, so the girl was encouraged to help herself.

It was no surprise that after eating, she was determined to explore the castle. Yennefer offered to accompany her, one because Geralt had grown up in the castle so showing it off would be cheating, and two so that he could stay with Jaskier. Jaskier was the one Geralt was worried about being in danger, Yennefer, and especially Ciri, would be perfectly safe.

* * *

Jaskier was just starting to stir again when the door creaked open, and Geralt was already drawing his sword when the doorknob turned. He had heard one set of footprints, which meant that it was not Ciri and Yennefer returning from their adventure.

“Peace, Geralt,” Vesemir said, hands held in front of him in a show of peace. “I mean your friend no harm. I merely wish to understand the story you did not tell about your child of surprise. And I wish to understand why you both say that he is not a Witcher. To be granted a long life from the Trial of the Grasses is to be a Witcher.”

“When I was at the the betrothal banquet of Princess Pavetta of Cintra, I saved the life of her cursed lover, who had been granted the law of surprise himself, which was why he was claiming Pavetta’s hand in marriage. Afterwards, when the curse was broken and he and Pavetta were married, he offered me the law of surprise for saving his own life, and I accepted, only for it to then be indicated that Pavetta was pregnant. The child was Ciri. And then when I was looking for her after Cintra burned down, I saved the life of a farmer who also offered me the law of surprise. When we arrived at his home, he discovered that his wife had found a little girl at the market and brought her home. Ciri.”

Vesemir leaned against the wall. “You tried to escape your destiny, so it found you another way. I don’t think I would believe your story, if it were anyone else telling it.”

Geralt glanced at his sleeping bard. “I think my destiny is tied to Jaskier, as well. I was at the banquet because of him, and found a djinn in a bottle, and went on a dragon hunt to save a dragon egg. Among all manner of other interesting things. What made you think he was a Witcher of the school of vipers, when you first saw him?”

“Are you so blind in your affection for him that you cannot tell by  _ looking  _ at him that he is not human?”

“I met him years ago, and yet he has not aged a day. He looks exactly as I remember him, singing a really bad song in a tavern, with people throwing stale bread at him. But he never hurt anyone, so I figured his nature was none of my concern. And he smells pretty human.”

“There are very very few mutations that give unchanging long life that are also scentless. Witchers and Mages. Gold dragons tend to age the human shape they take, and the glamor of changlings is supposed to allow them to blend in. Agelessness does not blend in. Other creatures can use advanced glamors as well, but they are much less common. You  _ know  _ this.”

“3 in 10 children survive the trial of the grasses,” Geralt said. “He’s not a Witcher, so why would he have taken it? And even then, they sent Witcher’s of the school of Viper to  _ kill  _ him.” He pulled the three viper medallions out of his pocket as proof.

“You could just ask me about Oxenfurt, instead of gossipping incorrectly about it. I’m a bard, yes, rogue assassin, yes, long lived,  _ maybe _ , assuming they don’t send more Vipers after me, but I’m definitely not a trained Witcher. The trial of the grasses is the last test the Witcher recruits are subjected to, yes? The one that grants the last mutations to those lucky enough to graduate?”

Jaskier seemed more awake than Geralt had thought he would be upon waking again, but this academic discussion was certainly interesting from a certain standpoint. Particularly from the one where no more Witchers could be made, as far as he knew.

“That would be correct, yes,” Vesemir said. “Every school uses their own unique alchemical formula for their trial of the grasses, but no mutations are identical even using the same formula. The felines enhanced emotion, the vipers enhanced their stealth why removing their ability to form any diplomatic sense, and the griffins a far enhanced sense of smell.”

“And your wolves say they have no feelings, when in reality, those that remain have a strong pack bond with each other, hence returning here every winter, as well as having greater strength, and hearing,” Jaskier supplied. “The assassin’s guild has two formulas for the Trial of the Grasses. Their standard Viper mix, and a second, much more dilute formula, that they use on the assassin’s trained in the path of music. It kills very few. I went to Oxenfurt to be a musician, and along the way they recruited me as an assassin. I graduated with highest honors in the seven liberal arts, and in my spare time, I assassinate individuals whose enemies had enough money to pay the guild. It was horrible. And now they want me dead, and Nilfgaard put a hit on Ciri, possibly related to the botched assassination of Pavetta at her bethrothal feast.”

“ _ That’s  _ why we were there?!”

“Calanthe was blackmailing me into protecting her daughter and assassinating the assassin. Which I did. They used to have standards. No hits on children and no hits on pregnant women. It's gone to the- uh, the dogs.”

"A Witcher, but not a Witcher. I guess you can stay, as long as Geralt is vouching for you."


End file.
